


All Roads Lead Here, A Post-Season 1 Series

by orphan_account



Series: All Roads Lead Here [1]
Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Explicit Language, Gen, Spoilers for Season 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 01:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1762345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Season 1, this my imagined Season 2.  Chapters will switch between characters, perhaps introducing new characters eventually.  </p><p>Chapter 1: Kate and Seth</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Road South: Seth and Kate 1

They are silent as they head south on dirt roads, both of them well beyond tired and in some other uncharted state of mind. The morning air feels so good after what they've just been through. Maybe it is like a rebirth, but saying that might be stretching it. What do you call the feeling of being half-chewed up and spat back out by a demonic cave? That is the precise feeling. They are alive, and putting miles between themselves and the worst hell either of them could imagine, and in spite of their exhaustion, there is a whisper of exhilartion to it. 

They drive through several small towns without speaking. Seth appraises each one in the same way he looks at any small town, increasingly aware that he has no clue what he is looking at. He already knows this is cartel territory, and no doubt it is the Culebras running the show. Just yesterday he imagined these border towns to be a welcoming network of lawlessness, but today it feels like a spiders web, and he is the fly. Empty shop windows stare back menacingly behind brightly painted billboards. Whose eyes are watching? Are they human? Are Narciso and Carlos already formulating some other plan for him? He's not too worried, though, knowing the money will keep them off his tail for at least a while. Long enough to get out of Dodge. At least, he hopes that is the case. 

Anyways, the sun is up, but it is early enough that no one is around to see their blood-spattered selves stumble about when Seth stops at a gas station. “Let’s keep it quick,” he says. Kate slips inside to buy bottled water and Seth buys a pint of gin from a little old man who barely looks at them from behind the counter. At least Kate gets the meaning of “laying low” without being told. Three hours more on the road in oddly comfortable silence and they finally hit a major intersection in what qualifies as a decent sized town. 

Seth lights a cigarette as the engine idles. "Alright. Which way, sister?"

Rousing from her reverie, she squints up at the street signs and takes a good look around. "South?" She says with a half-hearted smirk.

"Yeah, got that part, Miss Sass" Seth sighs, wincing in the morning sun. Two big names stand out above arrows left and right. "OK... Monterrey, or Torreon? Or, to make it simple... East or West?" 

"You mean the Gulf or the Pacific?"

"Look at you Miss Geography." 

"Seriously? Your going to tease me for knowing that?" 

"Hey now. I don't know what you kids do and don’t know these days." 

Kate looks away, hiding her expression. 

"Well, at least we are both thinking beaches," Seth raises an eyebrow at her. "I don't know about you, but I'm thinking clear Pacific blue sounds better than that muddy bathtub." 

"Sounds good to me," she says, flatly.

The light changes and Seth revs the engine. He is looking over at her, looking for a smile. Something. "We're good for gas for a while. I'll stop in the next town and we can get some grub and clean up a bit." Seth glances at her again. Still no response. "The further away we get from the border, the better... And then we can relax a bit."

"Sounds good." Kate says, faintly. 

"That's gotta sound better than good." Seth implores. _Is this a teenage thing?_ He wonders. _I hadn’t thought of her as apathetic._ "We’ll find a taqueria in a small town, and surely one of these gas stations has a shower for truckers... No more vampire slime."

"Sounds splendid." Her voice is still flat. 

"Splendid." Seth echoes, dryly. "C'mon, Kate! How about some enthusiasm!"

"Fantastic. Amazing." Kate forces a cheesy smile.

"Fantastic. Amazing." Seth echoes, grinning. That's more like it. 

They laugh as they speed out of town, tiredness and grief bubbling out in a moment of hysterical laughter. She's smiling for real now. That is good.

"Earth-shattering," Kate says, with conviction. She looks at him, mockingly, and, he imagines, suggestively. 

Seth guffaws, "Whoa, now. Don't get too carried away. I don't really need any more earth shattering for a while."

"I'm with you on that," Kate concedes, sober again. The smile drops away, and Seth thinks he might have hurt her feelings. She focuses on streets, the people in and out of tiendas, sidewalk stalls of toys, clothing, cheap electronics, and food. She could get a cheap cell phone and a new shirt. She hadn't brought any change of clothes. Nothing in that RV felt like hers anymore. She squirms a bit, feeling somewhat exposed in just her bloody tank top. 

Seth sighs, and shifts gears. "Fuckin’ a." 

 

The silence stretches on for hours more. The flat terrain shifts to abrupt lines of mountain ranges rising out of the salt flats. It is beautiful and intimidatingly sparse, and scorching hot under the sun. The yellow center line flickers like a tongue disappearing below the hood of the car as they speed down the highway. Hypnotically. For a moment, Seth feels the weight of his past hovering about him ominously, as it did in the labyrinth. His Dad. Richie. Vanessa, even. It’s as if they were standing on the side of the road, watching him drive by. As if he could blink and suddenly it would be one of them in the passenger seat, ready with a cutting criticism. For a moment, Vanessa is right there with him. _“What, is she my substitute? Really? She’s not even an adult. What is the matter with you?”_ Seth shakes his head to clear the thoughts, rubbing his face. 

“You ok?” Kate asks, looking worried. She’s good at that. “Are you too tired?”

“Nah, I’m fine.” He gives a reassuring smile. “Just still a little jumpy.” 

“Yeah,” She agrees. “Me too.” 

They are both staring down the road ahead again, heat mirages already starting to warp the horizon. The vista is so clean and sparse, surely the memories will get caught somewhere in the passing scrub. They'll pass this next mountain range, and all that haunts him will be left behind, the sun burning them up like water on a hot pavement. 

He glances over at Kate. She is staring wistfully at the mountains. At the sky. At nothing. _All her baggage is her parents,_ it occurs to him, _and they are gone._ Jacob is gone, surely. _She's got a clean slate,_ he thinks. _More than I ever had._ He checks himself. _Great, way to go,_ he thinks. _Be jealous of the girl whose life you just blew clean to hell._

She catches him looking, and shifts in her seat, glances back at him, grimacing. 

"So. You want to talk about it?" Seth raises his eyebrows in invitation. 

"Not really."

"Yeah, me either." This is half true. Seth wants to rant about the unfairness of it all. That for all he sacrificed for his brother and for all they won, all he has to show for it is a bloody neck and stolen car. He is trying to think of a time he'd put out more and got so little in return. He feels used and used up. And he didn't even get in a "fuck you" on his way out the door. No, not even that. Just a "don't bother, brother". _Don't bother to love me anymore._ He hears the words echoing in his head. And the way Richie looked at him... What was that? Pity. Richie looked at him with pity. _Fuck no, he doesn't want to talk about THAT._

But he feels Kate's grief like as a dull pang in his gut. He glances over at her. She has one leg tucked up on the seat and she is half hugging it to her chest, and her shoulders are slumped with weariness. But there is something in how she looks off into the distance that doesn't seem at all defeated. He can't quite name it, but he gets she has found resolution with all of this, that she has the answers she's been looking for. They weren't the answers she wanted to hear, but it wasn't the worst she could have imagined, and her questioning is over. The look on her face isn't despairing. The expression is one of peacefulness. Seth had so wanted to expose Jacob as a hypocrite and a drunk, but apparently underneath his gruff righteousness, Jacob was a good man, worn down as all good men get worn down, by circumstance. And she knows it. He can see she knows it. Her loved ones are forgiven. _What could be better than that?_ He wishes he had half an ounce of her equanimity to ease the bitterness he can feel hardening inside him. Nothing stings like betrayal. 

She might not want to talk, but if she's riding with him, he feels entitled to poke at her wounds, at least a little. 

He appraises her with a sidelong glance. "I'm guessing you found your brother. I'm guessing he's a blood sucker now, too. I'm guessing you feel about as pleased with the whole thing as I do.” Kate hardens her lips into a hard grimace and stares out at the desert, her eyes focusing on the blur of creosote and cactus speeding by. "Did he at least talk to you?" 

Kate thinks about this for a moment, remembering Scott’s eyes and how they seemed to look through her. It occurs to her she'd seen that look before, once, when she'd caught him partying at a friends house. He'd had a few beers and taken some drug. She hadn't been able to figure out what it was. She yelled at him and dragged him home. He hadn't even tried to fight her on it. His eyes had glittered. He just kept saying, over and over, "Kate, Kate... you've got to try this stuff. It will change your life. Everything is so much clearer now." She had pulled away from him then. "I don't know who you are when you are like this, Scott," she had told him, crying. He had laughed bitterly, and they didn't say another word. She never told their folks, and he slunk back into his bedroom without anyone being the wiser. She had looked in on him, and he was lying spreadeagled on the floor, staring intently at the ceiling and muttering. She never told anyone about it. She never told anyone about the other things she'd heard him mutter under his breath, the threats he couldn't say to the faces of the boys in school. She never told anyone. She rubs her forehead thinking about it. 

After a long pause, she glances over at Seth and sighs. "Yeah. We found him. We talked." To herself, she recalls, _he bit my Dad. He wanted to make me turn, too._ She doesn't share these things. She doesn’t want to cry in front of Seth. She swallows hard. 

Seth waits. The yellow line keeps disappearing beneath them. "And every thing is hunky dory?"

"He got what he wanted," she states matter-of-factly.

Seth takes that in, surprised. "Really?" He looks over at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah. I think he really did."

"You mean he wanted to be a blood-sucking Mexican dracula?" 

Kate grimaces right back at him. "He got what he wanted." That isn’t entirely true. _He didn’t get Dad,_ she thinks. _He didn’t get me._ She shudders, less from the fear and more out of empathy for Scott, for how alone he is. 

Seth takes that in, drumming his fingers on the wheel. "Damn." 

The desert speeds by, hypnotically. The road is equanimity in Seth's mind. We're leaving this all behind us, he tells himself. 

"Well, that makes two brothers who got what they wanted." 

Kate can't help her curiosity, although she has already surmised as much. "You mean Richie is..."

"Yep."

"And he went off with..."

"Yep."

Kate takes that in. "Well at least they are still alive."

"I don't care." Seth is expressionless. 

"You don't mean that." She looks at his face, searchingly.

"No, Kate, I do mean that. I don't give a flying fuck." Seth shakes his head and smiles bitterly. Kate just looks at him, her face sad. Seth returns her look with incredulity. "Well, if you're glad your brother is what he is instead of dead, good for you. So far as my brother goes, I don't care either way. I did what I said I'd do: I got him to Mexico, he’s gone his own way, and my hands are washed of him. That's it. I'm done." 

His jaw is set and shoulders braced. His next glance betrays his anger and hurt, and she nods, accepting it. She closes her eyes and tries to imagine Richie as a culebra. Somehow, it doesn't seem half bad. Scott seemed like he was out of control, high on power he didn't understand. Richie... maybe this is what he needs. If being a culebra means knowing things, being tapped into that higher visionary power, means living outside of normal human life... Kate feels like Richie would know what to do with that. Better for him to have it all the way. Better than teetering on the brink of it, half-full of insights and half driven mad by the limits of being human. It makes her chest feel warm the way it does in a movie when the hero finally picks up their sword and rides off into battle. She looks back at Seth, his face almost boyishly petulant beneath his furrowed brow, and looks away, and sighs. She is surprised to find she already has a place inside of her that misses Richie's dangerous tenderness. _Imagine growing up with him._ She'd like to think that Richie would look out for Scott, but somehow she doesn't think that will ever happen. _He had a shadow on his heart._ Richie had seen that clear as day. 

 

An hour later and out in the middle of nowhere, they finally spot a gas station with a taqueria that looks inviting. Clean and sparse. Bathrooms with showers around the back. No other patrons to run into and frighten. An old man is sitting outside on the stoop, taking in everything and saying nothing, and an elderly lady is knitting behind the counter. 

"Alright, Kate," Seth glances over at her as he puts it in park. "Wait here a moment. You look like hell. No offense."

She chuckles a little, suddenly self conscious. Seth gets the bathroom key for Kate from the attendant and then fills the tank as Kate goes to wash up. When she comes back she finds a pink cowboy hat and a clean men's dress shirt sitting on the seat. She lifts up the hat and looks at Seth, _like, what on earth?_

"They were selling them. It had your name on it,” He says, and grinning. “You'll burn without it. You need it,"

She shakes her head, and puts it on, looking at her reflection in the window. "Oh my God." 

"Taking the lords name in vain..."

"Oh my God!" She exclaims, more emphatically. She tilts the hat, trying to find any angle that makes it look passably cool, and grimaces at her reflection. "Did you have to get pink?" 

"I thought you liked pink," he smirks at her. 

She rolls her eyes at him, but she’s grinning. She’s pleased. "And this is yours?" She holds up the shirt.

"Ok, so it isn't fashionable, at least for you, but I don’t really have much else. And we don't want to have to put the top up on the car..."

"Ok, ok." She knows she is already starting to turn red from the midday sun. She pulls it on, the sleeves dangling down well past her hands. She starts to cuff the sleeves and shrugs to settle it on her shoulders. It looks ridiculous, but still a damn sight better than her ragged tank top. Maybe it isn't so ridiculous. Maybe it is even a little cute. "Thanks," she says sincerely.

"Yep," He nods. "OK, I’m gonna go wash up a bit myself. I didn't get any food. I didn't know what you wanted." 

"Ok, I’ll get us something. I’ll just let the lady at the counter choose what’s good?" 

"Works for me. You got cash?" 

"Yeah, I grabbed what I could from the RV. I’m good" 

"OK, cool. I've got enough for a while, too. Just let me know." 

She nods. 

"And no talking to strangers." 

"Haha, very funny." She snaps.

"No, I'm serious, you never know who your going to meet." This girl is too easy to mock, thinks Seth. 

"I can handle it," Kate blushes. 

"Yeah you can, Preacher's Daughter." 

"Oh my God! Why did I ever agree to come with you?" Kate throws the hat on the seat and turns heel. 

"Oh that is how you're gonna play it?" He laughs as she walks inside, her hand flipping him the bird. Seth is still laughing as heads to the bathroom. The door closes behind him, and the laugh dies in his throat as he catches a glimpse of himself in the dirty bathroom mirror. _I'm the one who looks like hell,_ he thinks. _And my neck..._ He fingers it gingerly. The fang marks aren't too bad, but the bruising... Wow. "Worst hickey ever..." he mutters, splashing water on his face, and taking another long look at himself. _Hickey? Oh my God. That is just wrong. If I could only unthink that thought. Fuck._


	2. The Road North: Richie and Santanico

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Santanico cross the border.

For all those centuries locked away, for having never actually travelled these roads, Santanico knows the landscape they speed through as intimately as the walls of her temple prison. In her mind she’s flown north along highways following the memories of those whose blood she’s fed on all these years. She knows the roads best. The lightly travelled places in between are deliciously mysterious. The roads are rivers of blood, the veins of the nation. Finally travelling it in body and not just in mind, she feels human in a way she hasn’t since her last moments running for her life through the jungle, desperate to evade the punishment of the priests. She feels both vulnerable and strong. _I carry my own blood,_ she thinks. Closing her eyes, she feels herself part of the larger organism. _I am finally playing my role, as it is meant to be. Not the role the false priests set out for me. Soon the people will feed on the selfish Lords who think themselves Gods above us. Our time has come._ Each breath she takes she imagines is the breath of the land stretching out around them. The earth is breathing. _Its will is my will. I am its action and its vengeance and its love._ She breathes slowly and rhythmically, taking delight in feeling both as vast as the continent itself and perfectly small and contained in her very own female form.

Richie can feel all this inside himself as though he had a second heart and second mind inside his body alongside his own. Her elation is his. Her joy sits on a throne beside his satisfaction, and every few moments he lets himself look over at her in the passenger seat, marveling in the alignment of this physical reality with his internal sense of perfection. _This moment is ours,_ he hums, _and it will last an eternity._ He recalls an image he saw once of a Buddhist or Hindu god, with eyes half closed, yet fully awake and at peace in soul and mind, his impossibly flexible consort wrapped around him like a snake, her hands poised to pluck insight out of the air around them. The memory rises up clear and strong, as though he can slip back in time all the while still being fully present. _This is my new mind,_ he chuckles to himself. He lets his memory take him back. 

It was a tapestry on the wall of the hippie smoke shop in Lawrence, Kansas. When he was living in the cabin south of Emporia, he would hitchhike every once and while to the larger towns, for entertainment and for company. Lawrence was the kind of place where even someone like him could find a kindred spirit, at least for a afternoon spent shooting the shit and passing a joint, watching the college kids walk by. With his beard and worn out clothing, no one from the KC outfit would recognize him hanging out with the street kids. They weren't your average street kids. _They had connections,_ he recalled. _They had soul. They appreciated me for who I was._ They plied him with tobacco seeds and choice homegrown pot, and got him to stop eating sugar. They talked a big talk about being survivalists, but none of them had hunted before, not really. A couple of them worked stocking shelves at a big box grocery, and they would send Richie home with a dozen cans of expired Bush’s Beans, “in case the gun misfires,” they’d say. They were way too nice to even question if he could make it out in the woods on his own or not. And the smoke shop owner had a new herb and a story every time Richie slipped in to get some loose tobacco. Richie would trade him mushrooms for smokes, and listen politely as the man enthused about some new kind of high or spiritual paraphernalia. 

“It’s a yab-yum,” the guy said of the tapestry. “Mother-father. It means being at peace with your feminine side, man. That’s the ultimate. That’s the goal. When you get there, man, you just have your very own goddess lady living inside of you, dude. Like, she’s always there and she knows the way, dude.” 

Richie had laughed at this, but had said politely, “Sounds like the way to be.” 

Sometimes Richie would protest, “I don’t use drugs.” And his friend would say, “dude, that’s ok. Take it anyway. Just hold it in your hand. Let it speak to you.” Richie didn’t even smoke the pot they gave him, but he would cradle every little contribution all the way back to his cabin, holding on to it the way a soldier would hold a letter from a loved one. _Maybe this is why church is so addictive,_ he thought. _People praying for your soul. These gifts are fucking prayers, dude. Maybe even better, because they weren’t pity prayers. These kids believe in me._ It made him laugh outloud thinking that.

He had a small plot where he was trying to grow tomatoes and peppers. He had a statue of the Virgin Mary some great aunt had left in the cabin many decades prior. He put her in the garden, and at her feet he buried all the pot and pills and herbs and whatever else people gave him to find his enlightenment. Like offerings. Like prayers. At the base of the statue was a little green snake. The Virgin's foot rested daintily on its head. He would focus on the snake, and smile. 

The hippie kids were wannabe visionaries. He knew he was the real deal. He may be book smart and inept in the woods, but he’d had insights for as long as he could remember. He was really pushing himself now, especially without Seth around spouting his incessant, soul-killing monologues. Richie tried meditating, but that just felt like a waste. He’d go out in the woulds and try and think like a tracker. Like... that guy... what was his name? The Tracker dude. It was nice in theory, but it felt all wrong in practice. He couldn’t tell one kind of animal track from another and somehow looking it all up in a book felt like cheating. He’d cheat a human to get a kill, but not an animal. He had his principles.

Mostly he’d wander the woods, and just let himself daydream. Sometimes old fears would come back to him, as if he was being tormented by old classmates. The rich jocks. The cops after a job. Or his Dad. He’d let himself sink into that feeling, the feeling of being prey, and try to switch it around. He’d try to see through the eyes of the hunter. Trying to empathize with the lowlifes that haunted him left him feeling wretched, so he would imagine he was an animal. He would stalk through the woods with that knife in hand, his eyes closed, and suddenly open them to realize he was creeping behind an another animal about to make a kill. A bobcat caught a rabbit right in front of him once. Another time he opened his eyes from a reverie about flying, and watched an eagle land in the branch above his head. It had a small racoon in its talons and it plunged its sharp beak into the furry neck. The blood dripped on his face. 

Eventually he stopped going to town, determined to become a hunter. The strange thing was, for as easy as it was for him to hit a target at the range, he felt his aim almost magnetically pushed off when he targeted animals. He came really close that day he used up his last bullet trying to take down the small doe. He’d been shaking from lack of food and nicotine withdrawal, but that deer had called him to her. _Hunt with your heart,_ she’d said. _Hunt for me._ The gun felt wrong in his hands, but she felt oh so right. He had missed, but he instinctively reached for his knife, imagining cutting into the soft skin above the jugular to finish the job. _I need to kill with my bare hands,_ it occurred to him. In retrospect, it was that realization that opened him right up to receiving Her. It was that first night with his first real kill, the rattler he’d faced off with, when he saw Santanico step over the fire and pin him down. _It all happened so fast,_ he thought. _That was less than a month ago._

She remembers all this with him. She looked through the eyes in the hands of the consort on the yab-yum tapestry, looked at him through the eyes of the sorority girls making their way down main street as he leaned against a streetlight casually appraising their stifled wildness. She was the deer, the snake, and the Virgin. She was the truth at the core of being human. _We are all killers. We are all animals who kill to survive. We are all both hunter and hunted._ He looks over at her, and catches a single tear running down her cheek. She is still smiling that knowing smile, even with a touch of sadness. His heart aches for a moment. All that blood rushing towards her. All that pain, for all those years. Every death that fed her hunger weighed on her heart like a personal offense. Every life taken. Sure, Carlos had made sure she fed from those who had become the worst of humanity, those who had death coming for them already, and if not welcomed by them, a benefit to humanity to have a cruel soul taken out of play. At least Carlos had understood that and not brought her innocent children to slake her thirst like all the others tried to do. But the lives of the miserable and depraved had worn her down, too. Their blood carried memories as horrible as anything she’d seen with her own eyes. 

She’d try to imagine all that suffering and waste purified as it incorporated into her physical form. For all the innocent lives ripped apart by violence, all that despair flowing through the blood she drank, all of that became her determination to succeed, each cell of her body dedicated to her goal. She might not be a savior for humanity. That is asking too much. _Human nature is inherently ugly, because for milenia we've tried to deny the simple fact of our animal nature. I can’t change that fact. But I can take the worst hypocrites out of play. And some will see me for what I am and see the truth I reflect back to them about themselves, that we all must kill to survive, and it can be done with discernment, love and respect. We all must accept what we are if we are to survive. ___

“Time to feed,” says Richie.

“Time to feed,” she agrees.

They pull into a parking lot next to a small strip of tiendas in Ciudad Acuna. _Hunt with your heart,_ he hears her words in his head. He forgets himself momentarily and makes to open the door.

“No! Richie... The Sun. Not yet. We have to bring them to us.” She croons. “Or, I have to bring them to you...”

“You want to provide for me?” Richie studies her, smiling. 

Santanico laughs, delighted. “I’d be honored, my love. We’ll provide for each other.”

“I want to get better at choosing,” Richie decides “Before I let you do that.”

“Sounds fair.”

They sit waiting for a few minutes. Richie is thinking. An expressionless middle-aged woman in attractive casual attire is walking to her car. She is blonde. American. Richie rolls down the window and lets himself look into her heart. He can hear it pulsating in his ears as if it is his own. She looks up, startled for a moment, and then returns his gaze with equal measure. In a flash, he sees her grief. A youth lost care-taking a sick parent. A bitter divorce from a frigid man. No children. Years of her life pushing papers in a government job only to be fired, and her severance package from a year ago is up, all her savings gone to pay debts not her own. Richie winces as he sees the most recent months. She tried to start a new life in Mexico. She tried dating. She cleaned rooms at an eco resort in return for lodging and yoga. She tried meditating, Richie sniffs. _That was a bad plan._ And she beat herself up for her failure to find happiness. Truth is, she’s so tired and disgusted with humanity, the thought of being happy amid all this ugliness seems like some kind of betrayal of self. And here she is, taking one last stop before crossing the border to go home, giving up on her last-ditch attempt at a life worth living, and returning home to...

Richie breaks the connection suddenly, and the lady looks away, confused and a little hurt. “This is so depressing.”

“Mmm, patience, my love,” Santanico breathes, “She would welcome it, but perhaps she isn't for you." They watch her gather herself and get into her car.

“I want to eat bad people.”

Santanico laughs out loud, and Richie looks at her with appreciation. He hadn't heard her laugh like that yet. She rubs his arm. “Mmm, they can be pretty tasty. We could let them choose us...”

“Like the Titty Twister,” Riche says, nodding.

“Like the Titty Twister,” she agrees, sighing bemusedly. “Only... better. This is new for me, too, in it’s own way. I have the freedom to choose how and when and whom unlike ever before... Who knows what you and I will evolve into.”

“I want to eat people who know things,” Richie says. His mind is forging a path ahead.

“There’s my man,” she murmurs.

“I know what to do. Will you help?”

“Of course, my love. You make the plan,” she smiles gleefully. “What do you need me to do?”

“Can you do an American accent?” She nods. "Can you drive a car?"

Santanico’s smile gets bigger. "I'm a fast learner"

 

Their SUV has American plates, procured and titled by friends of Carlos in San Antonio. Santanico has pulled her hair back in an elegant coif, and pulled a light blouse over her black top. Nothing she could do would make her look anything less than the most exotic beauty ever to be seen, but she knows how to train the eye and fool the mind. Richie is crouched on the floor behind the drivers seat as she pulls up to the checkpoint, childishly excited to watch her enact their little plot.

The border is crawling with cops. Unmarked government vehicles that are surely FBI. Rangers. Mexican police. Yellow crime scene tape blocks off half of the southbound checkpoint lanes, and numbered placards mark bullets and blood spatters still being mapped out by forensics. Cars are lined up for what looks like miles to go through the one lane they have left open. 

Santanico clucks her tongue, “Oh Carlos, niño. What a mess your boys made.”

“Carlos shot this place up?” Richie peaks out the window.

“Mmm, his boys did. Right after you crossed,” Santanico catches his eye in the rear view mirror.

“Hmm... Seth didn’t tell me that.”

“He probably didn’t know, Richie”

“He didn’t know a lot of things,” Richie sighs.

Santanico lets those words lie there for a moment. “He got you to me,” She says.

“He did that. He did.” Richie concedes. “Ok, here we go...”

The border guard taps on their window, and Richie crouches lower, closing his eyes. Eyes find eyes, he thinks, and this time he can feel himself dissolving away from sight.

Santanico rolls down the window.

“Good morning, ma’am. I see you’re headed home. ID please.”

“Good morning, officer. I have a terrible problem,” She nails a Texas latina drawl, with a touch of trophy wife class.

He looks at her for the first time, and straightens himself up. “Uh, oh, well, that is terrible! How can I... can I help you?” He stammers, shifting. He is entranced already.

“Oh, you are so kind!” She gushes, touching his arm. He is now hypnotized.

“Anything for a lady such as yourself,” he beams at her compliment like a lovesick puppy. He falters for a moment, shaking his head and trying to reclaim his dignity. He tries again, “Uh, I mean, what... what exactly is the problem?”

“Oh I was mugged! It was so frightening. These big men! They took my wallet. My money. My ID. Everything!”

“Oh my God, no! Not you!” The guard looks completely devastated to hear this

“Yes, yes, it happened to me!” Her urgency is contagious

“What... what happened?”

“Well, I come down here to see my abuelita, because she’s ill and she’ll never leave her home, and my husband just doesn't have the time to help me with her...” She blinks at him dramatically, “And I was all alone getting her groceries... and they just appeared out of nowhere.”

“Oh, that’s awful! And you were just helping your grandma...”

“It was daytime, too! In full daylight. Not even nighttime. And I told the cops about it, and they didn’t even care!”

“No! How could they not care when something like that happens to an angel like you! Who were they? I’ll go get them myself...” He tucks his clipboard under his arm and starts reaching for his cell phone.

“Oh, cariño, you brave man... No, no, that is not necessary. I just want to go home and be with my husband and let him take care of it all. I just want to be at home in my own country again and pretend it never happened.”

“Oh, I want you to be home and safe. I could get you home and safe.” He looks as if this is the best idea that has ever occurred to him. He would do anything for her at this point.

“You are so sweet, but clearly your work here is too important for you to leave. Surely one of these men could help me... Perhaps there is a federal agent who could investigate my stolen ID...”

“Ahh, yes! Well, it is your lucky day! Uh huh. Erm... I mean... It just so happens that the F. B. I. is here today, right over there,” He annunciates each letter slowly, F-B-I, and nods over to two men leaning back against one of the white government sedans. “I’ll lead the way, you just pull your vehicle up behind me.”

He akwardly stops the traffic in the neighboring lane and directs her over to the parking lot, causing the relatively small line of cars waiting on the Mexican side to start honking and shouting obscenities, like they are trying to compete with the irritability of those on the US side. Pulling up, Santanico and Richie watch the border guard talking excitedly to the two Feds. One is clean cut and dark haired in a tailored suit, obviously going for a James Bond kind of look. The other is perhaps the more handsome, dishevelled in khakis and shirt sleeves, and appraising the world with a skeptical eye. He narrows his eyes looking at Santanico. She waves sweetly back at him, and his scowl deepens. Richie feels something akin to apprehension looking at this man.

“Can’t win them all,” drawls Richie.

“In time, I can win them all...” Santanico says firmly, and Richie doesn’t argue. “But it’s the other one who knows more. And he’s a bad man... You sad you wanted a ba-aad man.”

“Yes, I did. Mmmhmm. He's the one. And here he comes.”

The dark-haired fed is straightening himself up and slicking back his hair with his palm. He saunters over, and leans in the window, his eyes looking Santanico up and down. He breathes into her face. Santanico looks steadily back at him with big, soft eyes. He sniffs.

“You lost?”

“No, sir.”

“I hear you were in a spot of trouble,” His southern accent is a thick drawl.

“Oh yes sir. It was terrifying,” Santanico blinks, like she might cry.

“You’re lucky we are here today, you know that?” He straightens up, drumming his thumbs on the roof of the car and puffing his chest a bit.

“Oh, I am so glad you are here, sir. I know I need _federal_ help.” She says the word federal slowly and emphatically.

He chuckles, squinting at the horizon, then looks at her intently and says, so seriously, “You need a _federal_ agent, ma’am. I’m here to help.”

“You're not too busy... I mean, I wouldn’t want to get in the way...”  


He glances around at the mundane chaos escalating around them, nodding, “I think they've got this well under control. I can leave it in the hands of my capable partner...” He sneers at said partner, who turns away in disgust to walk into the border station. “Which leaves me needing a ride.” He smiles, sickly sweet, flashing his perfectly bleach white teeth.

“You mean you’d ride with me? All the way back to San Antone?” Santanico beams right back at him.

“You’ll be safe with me, ma’am. And...” He glances around, “I won’t tell if you won’t”

Santanico laughs flirtatiously, “Oh you are so considerate...”

“Oh I try my best,” he drawls. He moves quickly around to the passenger side and slips in. He offers her his hand to shake, “I’m Richard,”

Santanico’s eyes widen with glee as she places her hand in his, and he turns it over to give it a kiss. “What a perfect name,” she says. " _Riiiichard_ "

He nods, smiling, forgetting to get her name. “Just cut the line... here.. ” He gestures back to the border crossing. “That’s right. Just drive on through.” The first border guard is there to wave them on and Santanico winks at him as they cross.

Richard the FBI agent leans back in the seat, looking Santanico over again, appreciatively.

She smiles back at him, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

A few miles down the road, they are well past the border congestion. She slows at a side road, and pulls up. He looks at her, surprised.

“You are bold. I like that.” He starts to move in for a kiss, and she holds up a hand to stop him.

“Oh no, I’m not that kind of girl,” she says softly, and seriously.

He looks confused. “Well, what kind of girl are you, exactly? What is your game?” He grabs her wrist, too firmly to be anything but a threat, and looks demandingly into her eyes.

She peers right back into his, reaching up to touch his check. “Darling,” she intones, “I like to watch” Her eyes flicker to a snakes eyes, and from a crouched position behind her seat, Richie the Culebra launches his fangs deep into Richard the Fed’s neck.


End file.
